Ok everyone.. Here's my first trip report as a Flight Attendant.. If I don't put something in you want to know, ask and I will try to add here and in the future.. All times local to respective cities..
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1-11-03

Well, this was to be my first flight to Punta Cana, so I was looking forward to it. I arrived at the airport, signed in, and waited for the rest of the crew. Once they arrived, the lead briefed us all, and we went up to the plane. Onec on board, we proceeded with our counts and searches, along with pre-flighting everything from the doors and lavs to the emergency equipment. It is a lot to remember, little differences for certain items, and things like that. Catering had not yet arrived, but did soon after, which was nice, as they had been dragging along and not getting on till after boarding.. Everything was ok, so we had our Captains briefing.. Our head Captain was Ian, on loan from JMC, FO was Eric, and Relief officer was James, also with JMC. Ian informed us of the fuel strike in PUJ, and the possibility that we'd have to go somewhere else to re-fuel after arrival in PUJ. We loaded up with a nice amount of extra fuel in DTW, boarded, and were on our way.

The flight down was really not a problem, no unusual pax, but there was a fair amount of turbulance. Also, it is interesting to find out that some planes DON'T have built in coffee-makers, and a lot of people do not like instant coffee.. LOL. We got up to altitude, I believe FL340. Got our food and drink service started, the breakfast being Apple Pancakes or Cheese Omlette, with the usual to drink.. Coke, Diet Pepsi, 7up, ginger ale, etc etc.. (yes, we serve HOT food on apple vacations flights) That flight I spilled quite a lot of stuff on my suit, and was glad I wasn't flying again till Friday so I could get it cleaned up..

Most of the pax slept the whole way. and before we knew it, we were on approach to PUJ and landed. This is where the fun began..

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On the ground in PUJ

Well, we de-planed the pax, and I went off to the airport for a few with one of the other F/A's.. Got some pizza, and came back to the plane, after taking pics of other planes there.. While on the ground, I saw the following, and took pics of most of these: Skyservice A330, AA 757, YES L-1011, LTU A330, Air Transat A320, NW A320, and more..

Well, apparently the fuel strike was worse then we thought. They wanted CASH MONEY, and were only willing to give 1/2 of what we wanted.. soooo .. Ian tried EVERYTHING to get us fuel for the whole trip, but to make a long story short, we got the shaft.. It took a long time to try, and we boarded way late, and took off even later, due to the end of the attempted dealing.. We ended up having to go to FLL To re-fuel the rest..
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Ryan International Airlines
Flight 2176
PUJ-FLL-DTW
Sched Departure: 1250
Actual Departure: LATE
Sched Arrival: 1620
Actual Arrival: After 2100
Aircraft: A320, 174 pax configuration
Registry: G-BXKC; Leased from JMC
My seat: L2- Aft galley, Captains side
# of pax- mostly full, don't remember exact #..

Once the pax are on board, we inform them exactly what is going on and the need to stop at FLL. Most of them take it ok, with 1 or 2 exceptions. It was going to take moe flight time with the stop then without, so we did our food and beverages on the way to FLL, this time food being some sort of pasta or beef. Once at FLL, we went to a gate, but no one was allowed to get off otherwise we'd have to ALL clear customs there, and that would have been a royal pain. We DID open the door to the jetbridge, to let some air on, and the Captain kept us informed as to what was up.. It turned out that the delays caused him and James to miss thier flights home to the UK. We all, pax and crew, felt bad for them. There were some kids on the flight, so I took the extra rolls from Breakfast AND dinner, along with snacks and fed them more, and gave the rest to whomever wanted some. Also did more drinks and a water service as we were on the ground for 2.5 hours in FLL before going again. I was pleased with the way the pax were acting, as I have heard stories about them getting REALLY uptight about stuff like this, again, only 1 or 2 were mean and stuff. I tried to provide entertainment for everyone, and had a lot of the plane in stitches laughing so hard .

Anyway, we got fueled, paperwork, etc etc, and were finally off for the nearly 2.5 hr trip back to DTW. Most of the pax slept. We did another 2 drink services, the captain kept coming on and talking ot all of us, and by the end of the flight, the pax were thanking the whole crew and shaking out hands and all for a nice flight.. Got a nice applause at the end when we landed at DTW, and a lady even wrote Ryan commending us.
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Overall, the flight was great, especially considering the delays. I have come to have an even GREATER respect and admiration for the people who work in the air, as now that I am a F/A myself, I can understand a lot of it.

Again, if anything has been left out that you want to know about, please let me know I hope to do more in the near future, the next I HOPE being my recent DTW-SXM-UVF-DTW trip..

Bruce, the fuel was not the big thing that delayed us. We needed some US customs from, I think it is called a pass-through form, becuase normally when you make your first stop back in the US, everyone has to clear customs. Well, we were not having anyone off at FLL.. The furthest any of us, and it was just me and the pilot, got off was just on the jetbridge. Then, that took at least an hour in itself.. Customs, for some reason was not thrilled at having us stop for fuel.. The other thing was some kind of paperwork, I think preformace plans or something that had to be faxed in, I believe from ICT. It was not the 14 pages being faxed in that took forever, it was finding someone to bring it to our plane..

Yeah.. It is definately a long time to stay on the plane.. I'm sure almost all of us would have LOVED to have gotten off to stretch a bit. but if ONE of us got of, Pax OR Crew, EVERYONE would have had to clear customs, re-check their bags, etc etc etc, and it would have been an EXTREMELY large pain in the butt to do..

I have at-airport reserve for the afternoon PUJ flight on the 25th.. I really hope things are fixed by then..

This is very good trip report and you had a very good flight from DTW-PUJ-FLL-DTW. And so why aren't you came fly in at my FLL airport for re-fuel? Can you please somebody tell us about exactly I did heard about oil been on the strike. And doing all right on the your flight and you still work on the airlines? Is that sure flight is full already? Well, talk ya later!

Hey Chris,
Just a question...has it been your dream to be a Flight Attendant, or soemthing you ahve always wanted to do? If so can you give me an E-mail so i can talk to you! Would be really nice! I really want to be a flight attendant when i am a bit older!!

Great report!
Sounds like you did a great job - you must have been exhausted!
I was wondering about legal duty time for RYAN - it seems you had an
over 14 hour turn-around block time and probably a 16 hour duty day.
I know that's pushing the legal limit for most Union F/A's but what about
the cockpit crew? After how many hours do they go illegal? Also a flight
time of 5h20 seems to be max for the A320. Is this one of RYAN's longest
legs for this A/C type?

Trav- The fuel was the quick part.. What took so dang long was the customs pass-through form, and the preformance report from ICT.. And it took the FLL ppl forever to get them to us.. sooooooooooo.. if everything had gone right, it would have taken 30-45 min tops.. but everything did NOT go right..

OC4b- Well, we are not unionized.. Also, there was a relief pilot, so that was all good.. it WAS getting near to our duty day limit, but there are always some policy or another for extenuating circumstances.. Also, our A320/21, under optimum conditions, can do a 8 hr flight.. That is what one of the pilots told me.. And I believe Ryan's longest flight right now (DTW base) is about 6 hrs, from UVF-DTW..

Scott- The pilot and Dispatch at ICT chose FLL.. Ian said "we have to land somewhere".. Also, I am also curious about the strike.. Anyone know those details???? And yes, I still love being a F/A

Just one more note. I notice a lot of people on here asking why things took so long in FLL. Do you ever wonder if any of them read before they write, because if they did they would have seen you answered that question at the beginning. God bless.